Daily News from New York, New York • 36

CD CO The Ticker DOW JOKES 11,033.92 NASDAQ 20.33 4,169.22 Yahoo! profits soar, but stock slumps TKDiJD posite index down nearly 140 points at the open on top of Monday and Tuesday's losses of about 20 gained 20.33 to 4,169.22. The Dow WALL Jones industrial average was up much of the day before slipping cations. "They're actually producing something that an audience wants." More and more people continued to visit Yahoo! on the Net to buy and sell things as well as get information, Yahoo! reported. Page views of its Web sites averaged 625 million per day in March, up about 34 from 465 million in December. The company said profits totaled $63.3 million, or 10 cents a share, 1 higher than analysts had predicted.

A year ago it earned $17.7 million, or 3 cents a share. Revenues were $228.4 million, up from $103.9 million a year earlier. The Santa Clara, Calif. -based company also named a new chief financial officer, Susan Decker, who will join from Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette, where she was global head of By RACHEL SCHEIER DAILY NEWS BUSINESS WRITER Yahoo! said yesterday profits in its latest quarter more than tripled, staying strong even as some of its smaller dot-com counterparts remain in the red. In advance of the report, released after the stock market closed yesterday, Yahoo! shares dropped 1 to close at $165.56.

Despite the better-than-expect-ed report, Yahoo! a bellwether of Internet stocks dropped as low as $159 in after-hours trading. Wall Street analysts, some of whom have been predicting a great dot-com shake-out, said the company's numbers are evidence that Yahoo! is pulling even further ahead of the pack. "There are some blue-chip Internet companies and Yahoo! is one of them," said David Card, an analyst at Jupiter Communi By M0NIQUE EL-FAIZY DAILY NEWS BUSINESS WRITER Saying she was upbeat about stocks, Wall Street guru Abby Joseph Cohen yesterday calmed the turbulent currents that have rocked the markets. A day after one of the wildest sessions the investment world has ever seen, Cohen's newest endorsement of stocks appeared to spark early rallies in the Dow and Nasdaq. "For the past decade, we have been enthusiastic about the outlook for U.S.

stock prices in the United States, and we remain so," said Cohen, the Goldman Sachs strategist, at a White House summit on the new economy. Cohen added that the long-running bull market had been driven by steady economic gains and therefore was justified. The whipsawed Nasdaq com- 130.92- to 11,033.92. These moves were slight when compared with the plunges and recoveries of more than 500 points for each exchange Tuesday. Known as a perennial Wall Street bull, Cohen nonetheless helped trigger a stock selloff last week when she advised investors to partially trim stocks from portfolios in favor of cash.

Yesterday, she added, "This economy has gotten not just big- Sandra Bullock's speedy sale ihortly before "28 Days" opens, the film's star, Sandra Bullock, sold her SoHo loft for the full $1.5 million asking price. This "deal could be called "6 Months." SEC looks to rein in investment advisers Federal securities regulators proposed new rules that would require investment advisers to publicly disclose when they sell securities that they are advising others to invest in, when they use a brokerage firm to obtain benefits such as research, and how they vote client proxies in shareholder votes. Investors, who have entrusted more than $18 trillion to advisers, would in turn be able to obtain information via the Internet about advisers' fees and any past disciplinary actions. The SEC also proposed requiring advisers to give clients brochures that are written in plain English and provide all the required information in a more narrative form. 200M dot-com prevention Goldman Sachs said it will distribute 2 million shares worth about $200 million at current prices to 8,000 analysts and associates, seeking to keep talent from fleeing to dot-coms.

The fifth-largest U.S. investment bank said the shares will be allotted based on a percentage of last year's pay. It would not reveal the percentage, but said it will be the same for each employee. Ad bugs some viewers That cockroach crawling across the screen isn't on your television, it's in it. Many viewers said they were frightened by the roach in a commercial for Orkin Pest Control.

Two viewers even asked the company to repair sets that they damaged when they hurled objects at the bug. Orkin and ad agency J. Walter Thompson have received dozens of calls from people who reported being scared, amused or both by the commercial, which starts as an ad for a fictional fabric softener. The success of the ad has prompted Orkin's public relations department to tailor another promotion around the commercial the "Orkin Got contest, with the winner of a random drawing receiving a new TV. Postcard or E-mail entries are due by April 30.

Long distance rate break Bell Atlantic, the first large local phone company to enter the U.S. long distance market, said it has cut direct dial rates to the 33 countries its customers most often call. The No. 2 U.S. local phone company, based in New York, is offering reduced rates through its International Savings Plan for direct dialed long-distance calls.

The service can be added to the company's other long-distance plans for a fee of $3 a month. Making a quick 17M B-ii ik One chairman and chief Janve Dimon. mred less tKcvi 'ao 'At'f-Ks iiio to co' if ionc revive canvas rncwh flor its sn it3 UiiA I wit their dlftWJy ol $17 rnliion en paper from st'jck cmpk paid linn and gams f.n slvres ixr. bought his own invney Wnn the ex Citigioup president w.ii Ivred. he was given 35.242 shares and was sold another 2 million shares at $28.37 each, according to a SEC filing.

Bank One shares, up more than 25 since word of his appointment got out March 27. fell 916 yesterday to $35.18. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION She had purchased the lower Broadway loft about five years ago, real estate sources said. Folks in the neighborhood said the "Speed" star didn't seem to live in the co-op very much. "The space is beautiful, it has like a million windows," with exposures in all directions, said one source.

The buyer is a woman who is moving from another apartment in the neighborhood, the source said, adding that the deal hasn't closed yet. Representatives for Bullock declined to comment. Earlier this year, Bullock paid $3. 1 million for a 25-foot-wide house on Sullivan Street, near the homes of Richard Gere and Vogue. editor Anna Wintour.

st i 4 spokesman for Related. The fund paid an unusually high price about $400,000 per apartment, or nearly the price normally paid for retail space for the mixture of studios and one- and two-bedrooms. "That's unusual. Usually in a transaction like that there's more of a discount for volume," said one broker. But the Related spokesman said the company wouldn't have sold for less because the potential returns from rents -justified the price tag.

Related tapped Doug Harmon, a partner at Eastdil Realty, as financial consultant for the pricey sale. Harmon declined to comment. PLUGGED IN The last piece of the hole financial information giant Standard Poor's left behind when it moved out of 26 Broadway last December has been filled by a dot- com. Internet consulting firm Proxicorh just signed a 15-year lease for two-and-a-half floors in the 31-story office tower at Broadway and Beaver Street, said Caleb Koeppel, president of Koeppel Tener Real Estate Services, the building's leasing agent. The deal was brokered by Peter Olans of the Staubach Co.

When moved out late last year, industry watchers were wondering whether the vacancy the firm left behind would be a problem to fill. After all. the building isn't new it was built in 1928 by John D. Rockefeller as the Standard Oil world headquarters. "But we've filled all that space and then some," said Koeppel.

In recent months. Koeppel Tener has signed new leases for 1 80.000 square feet of space, and renewed and expanded major tenants like Quick ReillyFleet Securities. There are no more big blocks of space in the building left to fill, Koeppel said, only a few smaller pieces," and they aren't going cheap: the asking rents are $35 a square foot, up from $25 a year ago. i 2f '1: their leases. "Everyone's getting one-month extensions," said one gallery director.

"It's kind of nerve-wracking not knowing what's going on. We do love this building." The 40-story landmark, a black and white 1929 Art Deco building, is home to such well-known galleries as Barbara Mathes, James Goodman, Jan Krugier and Zabriskie. Andre Emmerich and the Marlborough Gallery were also longtime tenants, as was Pierre Matisse, son of Henri. But the red-hot real estate market has no time for nostalgia. Even before Vornado purchased the building last year for $125 million, the Robert Miller gallery had to give up its second-floor space because leather goods retailer Coach which was willing to pay much higher rents wanted to expand.

Vornado is "trying to figure out what they want to do with the space," said one source. "There's been talk of converting the building to residential, but I think right now they're just keeping their options open." A spokeswoman for Vornado declined to comment. HOT RENTAL SALE The Ventura, Related new luxury rental building at 240 E. 86th just sold for an extraordinary $125 million. The buyer of the 25-story.

246-apartment building was a Florida pension fund, said a 3 WILL FULLER EMPTY GALLERIES? The two dozen art gallery owners in the Fuller Building at Madison Avenue and E. 57th Street are wondering if they'll have to move, since the new landlord. Steve Roths Vornado Realty, is -5 not renewing 4 any X) FRED PROUSER.